Our first taste of course content has been engaging and thought provoking. It has provoked several thoughts in me! It was somewhat strange being given a macroscopic look at the structures of higher education. These are policies organizations and concepts that, I must confess, I have largely ignored as I have seen them is distant and irrelevant to my practice on the ground. The humble day-to day activities of education seem far removed from the statistics and overall political questions presented by James Wisdom today. Of course they are not. Everything is connected. I should know and understand the big picture as it will, ultimately affect me and those I work with.

I pick one of James points out as it surprised me. A simple statistic that caught me off guard.

The overall benefit to the taxpayer for each person who completes higher education is 110,00 per man and 30,00 per woman.

Two shockers in that statement. First that higher education is so financially beneficial to the state. I think James may have called it “a financial no-brainer” or maybe that was me. An educated population is a financially productive population. Certainly not the only indicator of contentment or success, but definitely an important indicator. The other, much more depressing point in this statistic is the huge disparity between male and female income benefit over the years. Multiple explanations for this I am sure. A big one is pay disparity, additionally, societal expectations on gender regarding “breadwinning”. Important to note however that this does not mean that women’s education is less valuable to society as a whole or to women in particular. Only that the financial outcomes are significantly different.

Another of James statements did surprise me and I struggle to believe it. That students as a whole don’t choose their educational path based on earning potential ….REALLY?……REALLY? I think that students and prospective students are extremely sensitized to future earning potential in the current climate. The whole system has been monetized due to the introduction of fees. Students see HE as much more transactional. They are making a financial investment and expect a financial return. Their choice of degree will affect that return. Surely it is no coincidence that more esoteric subject areas are underpopulated by people from economically disadvantaged backgrounds. If, as a student, my family is going into debt to give me an opportunity to “better” myself then I have a huge pressure to pick a degree that will give me the most chance of good pay and security. That might not be ceramics or literature.

I want to talk about Victoria Odeniyi’s lecture too. Her presentation on research surrounding language and international students feels so relevent to current work with students at UAL today. We have so many students for whom english is a second language.

I was interested in her reference to “multi-modal language”, in other words language in different forms, text, speech, image. We talked about this use within the online learning framework. I find the use of verbal and textual language simultaneously quite difficult. For me It creates a neurological dissonance. Verbal speech and written speech are processed in different parts of the brain. Can they really be integrated seamlessly on the fly? Tutors giving online classes are expected to lecture and lead discussion as well as monitoring a chat feed and interacting with that as well. I was impressed that James, Victoria, and Lindsay were all doing this very well yesterday. I wonder if I could do this? I feel like I would lose my train of thought. As it is, as a participant I cannot concentrate on a lecture and monitor the chat. How do tutors do it? Monica, my partner, suggests that we just have to give ourselves the space to pause and check the chat window. Change language modes. Perhaps this ties in with our other discussion with Victoria around the value of silence and pauses during class interactions.